July 13, 2022 • 11 mins
Catatumbo lightning is one of nature's most amazing displays of showiness, with strikes occurring 28 times per minute for nine hours a day, 300 days a year. So take cover and take a listen.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
and here's Jerry, and Dave's not here, but that's okay
because this is short stuff and that's just how we
do it. And Chuck, I'm excited about this one because
I had no idea about this, had never heard of it,
and you totally scored with this one. So yeah, it
wasn't too long ago. It was when the last six
months or so I became aware of the Catatumbo lightning.
(00:28):
I think I was just looking through like weather phenomenon
because that's always interesting. Um want to shout out Explorers
web dot com, uh, Science, ABC dot com, NASA dot gov,
along with some other websites because there's plenty of websites
talking about the cat Zumbo lightning. Yeah, I want to
shout out Atlas Obscura, who I saw a pretty neat
(00:49):
little two minute video to learn some extra stuff too.
So catet Tumbo lightning is this very specific, very isolated
phenomenon that takes place in one specific spot in Venezuela
on a very giant lake lake. I'm gonna say, Marisaibo, Maricibo, Okay,
(01:10):
what do you think I was gonna say Maracaibo, but
I don't know if that's a hard seer or so
let's go with Maracaibo. Mine was way too fancy. One
specific part of this lake even it's that like localized, yeah,
and so you'd think, like, okay, big what, there's some
lightning that happens this one specific part of this lake.
(01:31):
And you would be right if it weren't for the
fact that these lightning storms take place at roughly the
same time every day, about three hundred days out of
the year. That's right, And you're saying, okay, who cares, still,
big whoop, you've got some lightning. It is lightning such that, uh,
you are getting a possible lightning strike maybe every two
(01:55):
seconds during this time frame, such that it almost provides
a near constant night sky light. It's that constant. Here's
the other thing too about it that just makes this
one of the most amazing weather phenomenon around. It takes
place over like nine hours, so every night, almost three
(02:15):
nights a year, this lightning strikes about twenty eight times
per minute over this one localized area for nine hours.
It's amazing. That's remarkable. And like you said, I mean,
it lights up enough stuff that you can see everything.
And there was actually a very famous raid from that.
Francis Drake was carrying out or about to carry out,
(02:36):
on the city of Maracaibo on the shore of Lake
Maracaibo appropriately, and he was found out because that lightning storm.
He was seen before he could attack, and they managed
to repel the attack. That's amazing. It's also known as
the Beacon of Maracaibo because it had served as a
beacon for sailors over over time. It's one of the
oldest lakes on Earth, dating back to thirty six millillion years,
(03:01):
and it was a big shipping route. If you were
going to the port of Kabimus and Maracaibo, you would
go through there and navigators would count on this lightning
as a beacon. It's sort of like having a lighthouse
around at all times in a way, except a lot
more dangerous because this stuff. I mean, if you're thinking, like,
do people get struck by lightning more there and killed more,
the answer for sure as yes. Yeah. NASA calls it
(03:24):
the lightning hot spot of the World, which apparently in
the Democratic Republic of Congo there that used to be
the lightning hot spot. But I'm not sure how you
ever would have thought to have beaten the Catatumbo lightning.
But yeah, now it's now, it's official Catatumbo lightning. It's
it's it. If you're talking about um. The indigenous people,
the warr w a r I, they believed that it
(03:47):
might have been the work of uh fireflies paying tribute
to their creator God, which that was wrong, wrong, wrong,
it was wrong. But it's always it's always fun to
hear those uh what the early folks thought about things. Sure,
but instead we now know exactly what's going on thanks
to some friends at noah UM. And I think we
(04:08):
should take a break and we'll come back and explain
how this works. What do you think, let's do it? Okay, Okay.
(04:42):
So the reason why this phenomena is so isolated and
also so reliable. It starts about after dusk and again
it lasts for about nine hours is because of the
geography of Lake Maracaibo and where it is. Apparently it's
right about at the mouth of um the Caribbean. The
Caribbean is very nearby, so there's a big, steady supply
(05:03):
of warm water that keeps the lake warm. Okay. Yeah,
And as we talked about in our wind episode, wind
is created when warm air rises and cooler air flows
in to kind of fill its spot and even things out.
But one of the other consequences of warm air rising,
(05:24):
especially warm air in the tropics that's impregnated with um
humid Caribbean air or yeah, human Caribbean air. As it
floats up, it starts to come in contact with colder
air that often contains colder ice particles. And when that
warm water vapor and those cold ice particles collide, they
(05:45):
actually generate static electricity. And it's on a minuscule, minuscule
level for each of these collisions, but if there's enough
of them, and in this area there's plenty, uh, all
of that stuff can create lightning, and it can create
it in aces. And then the case of Lake Maracaibo,
what's going on as you have these uh it's sort
of surrounded on three sides by these mountain ridges. So
(06:07):
what that leaves is as a really narrow little pathway
uh to the Gulf of Venezuela, where that Caribbean sea
water is just constantly bringing in warm water through that
little channel. And then you've got also you know, you've
got you're in the tropics there, so you've got the
sun that's also pulling moisture from the lake, and then
you've got these winds. And I think they found uh,
(06:30):
there's this researcher, Uh what's anhel Munio's right, and Unheld
did a bunch of research on this, basically trying to
predict a model, like coming up with a model to
predict conditions that might lead to occurrence of lightning and
not not just here but period and then applying it
(06:51):
here to see like what the deal was. Yeah, because
they used to suggest that it was um uranium deposits
or maybe methane deposits beneath the lake that we're somehow
electrostatically charging the air above it. But I guess they've
never found uranium or methane deposits to support that, and
it's not even clear whether that could happen. So on
helm Unions said, I think I've got this figured out.
(07:14):
He managed to trace and track um the wind that's
generated every night, and it's so reliable it has its
own name. He calls it the Maracabo Basin nocturnal low
level jet. Needs to work on that name a little bit, sure,
it should at least be an acronym yeah, I was
gonna say it's not even the n B N L
(07:35):
l J. So because of the geography and the topography,
that wind comes in every night and it's funneled through
that little narrow mouth that you were talking about. But
as it pushes along inward land word um, it eventually
runs into those mountains that ring the lake itself, right
(07:56):
And when that happens, it goes up and it's pushing
all of that warm air right up into that colder air.
And this wind, this jet picks up about the same
time every day around dusk. So there's your wind right there,
and then you've got the hot water or the hot
warm air that's full of water being pushed up into
the colder air. Yeah, and it's it's kind of interesting.
(08:17):
So you have this air that sort of has a
title motion going as well, So this air is flowing
in and then receding again. And just the fact that
it's it's happening at about the same time every day
because of the way that everything just happened does be
laid out and sit in just the right way to
make this happen at the same time every day. Uh, well,
(08:40):
not every day, but what is it two three hundred
days a year, three hundred days a year, and there
was a period in two thousand ten where it went
six weeks without it and that was a huge deal
because it doesn't usually do that, and they figured out
there's because of El Nino bringing very dry wind in. Yeah,
and to be clear, these are storms. It's not like
(09:00):
you just sit back and watch the light show and
it's just like this warm summer heat lightning or something like.
Oftentimes it's a company by really strong surface winds, and
it's I don't know what it's like to live there.
I think about what about a quarter of the population
of Venezuela lives sort of nearby. Yeah, so it's it's
a lot of people. Yeah, I mean that's just every
(09:21):
single day. I guess they just count on these big,
big storms coming in. Yeah. So they've got the lightning show,
the Catatumbo lightning three hundred nights a year, and it's
stormy about a hundred and sixty nights a year. There's
a ton So what's happening when it's not stormy but
you're getting the lightning? They're probably Oh so I saw
on the Atlas Obscure video that sometimes it's it can
(09:43):
be like hundreds a hundred kilometers in the sky, so
you can get that light show, but it's literally quiet.
So that's pretty cool too. Yeah, those are the money
nights to be there, I guess for sure. Yeah. And
I saw one other thing that I not only saw
this here, I didn't realize it, but I had some
bottom mine haff stuff going on, because there's this website
called Futility Closet that is just an amazing website. So
(10:07):
I saw that. I saw this fact in this article,
and then last night I was on Futility Closet and
I saw the same fact. So it has to that
means it's worth sharing, don't you think. Let's hear it. Venezuela.
Supposedly it was named by Amerigo Vespucci, who named it
Venezuela because when he got to the Lake Maracaibo region,
(10:29):
he saw people living in huts on stilts and it
reminded him of people living in in houses on stilts
in Venice. So Venice apparently means little or Venezuela apparently
means little venice. That's amazing. I thought so too. I
think it's so cool. What else you got? I've got
nothing else? Well, I'm glad we explained it. I love
(10:49):
ones that are like this is amazing and here's exactly
how it works. So thank you very much. On helm
UNO's thanks that was obscure, NASA Science, ABC Explorer, Web
and Futility Closet. I love it. Short Stuff is out everybody,
m H. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(11:09):
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
Hey, welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck,
and here's Jerry, and Dave's not here, but that's okay
because this is short stuff and that's just how we
do it. And Chuck, I'm excited about this one because
I had no idea about this, had never heard of it,
and you totally scored with this one. So yeah, it
wasn't too long ago. It was when the last six
months or so I became aware of the Catatumbo lightning.
(00:28):
I think I was just looking through like weather phenomenon
because that's always interesting. Um want to shout out Explorers
web dot com, uh, Science, ABC dot com, NASA dot gov,
along with some other websites because there's plenty of websites
talking about the cat Zumbo lightning. Yeah, I want to
shout out Atlas Obscura, who I saw a pretty neat
(00:49):
little two minute video to learn some extra stuff too.
So catet Tumbo lightning is this very specific, very isolated
phenomenon that takes place in one specific spot in Venezuela
on a very giant lake lake. I'm gonna say, Marisaibo, Maricibo, Okay,
(01:10):
what do you think I was gonna say Maracaibo, but
I don't know if that's a hard seer or so
let's go with Maracaibo. Mine was way too fancy. One
specific part of this lake even it's that like localized, yeah,
and so you'd think, like, okay, big what, there's some
lightning that happens this one specific part of this lake.
(01:31):
And you would be right if it weren't for the
fact that these lightning storms take place at roughly the
same time every day, about three hundred days out of
the year. That's right, And you're saying, okay, who cares, still,
big whoop, you've got some lightning. It is lightning such that, uh,
you are getting a possible lightning strike maybe every two
(01:55):
seconds during this time frame, such that it almost provides
a near constant night sky light. It's that constant. Here's
the other thing too about it that just makes this
one of the most amazing weather phenomenon around. It takes
place over like nine hours, so every night, almost three
(02:15):
nights a year, this lightning strikes about twenty eight times
per minute over this one localized area for nine hours.
It's amazing. That's remarkable. And like you said, I mean,
it lights up enough stuff that you can see everything.
And there was actually a very famous raid from that.
Francis Drake was carrying out or about to carry out,
(02:36):
on the city of Maracaibo on the shore of Lake
Maracaibo appropriately, and he was found out because that lightning storm.
He was seen before he could attack, and they managed
to repel the attack. That's amazing. It's also known as
the Beacon of Maracaibo because it had served as a
beacon for sailors over over time. It's one of the
oldest lakes on Earth, dating back to thirty six millillion years,
(03:01):
and it was a big shipping route. If you were
going to the port of Kabimus and Maracaibo, you would
go through there and navigators would count on this lightning
as a beacon. It's sort of like having a lighthouse
around at all times in a way, except a lot
more dangerous because this stuff. I mean, if you're thinking, like,
do people get struck by lightning more there and killed more,
the answer for sure as yes. Yeah. NASA calls it
(03:24):
the lightning hot spot of the World, which apparently in
the Democratic Republic of Congo there that used to be
the lightning hot spot. But I'm not sure how you
ever would have thought to have beaten the Catatumbo lightning.
But yeah, now it's now, it's official Catatumbo lightning. It's
it's it. If you're talking about um. The indigenous people,
the warr w a r I, they believed that it
(03:47):
might have been the work of uh fireflies paying tribute
to their creator God, which that was wrong, wrong, wrong,
it was wrong. But it's always it's always fun to
hear those uh what the early folks thought about things. Sure,
but instead we now know exactly what's going on thanks
to some friends at noah UM. And I think we
(04:08):
should take a break and we'll come back and explain
how this works. What do you think, let's do it? Okay, Okay.
(04:42):
So the reason why this phenomena is so isolated and
also so reliable. It starts about after dusk and again
it lasts for about nine hours is because of the
geography of Lake Maracaibo and where it is. Apparently it's
right about at the mouth of um the Caribbean. The
Caribbean is very nearby, so there's a big, steady supply
(05:03):
of warm water that keeps the lake warm. Okay. Yeah,
And as we talked about in our wind episode, wind
is created when warm air rises and cooler air flows
in to kind of fill its spot and even things out.
But one of the other consequences of warm air rising,
(05:24):
especially warm air in the tropics that's impregnated with um
humid Caribbean air or yeah, human Caribbean air. As it
floats up, it starts to come in contact with colder
air that often contains colder ice particles. And when that
warm water vapor and those cold ice particles collide, they
(05:45):
actually generate static electricity. And it's on a minuscule, minuscule
level for each of these collisions, but if there's enough
of them, and in this area there's plenty, uh, all
of that stuff can create lightning, and it can create
it in aces. And then the case of Lake Maracaibo,
what's going on as you have these uh it's sort
of surrounded on three sides by these mountain ridges. So
(06:07):
what that leaves is as a really narrow little pathway
uh to the Gulf of Venezuela, where that Caribbean sea
water is just constantly bringing in warm water through that
little channel. And then you've got also you know, you've
got you're in the tropics there, so you've got the
sun that's also pulling moisture from the lake, and then
you've got these winds. And I think they found uh,
(06:30):
there's this researcher, Uh what's anhel Munio's right, and Unheld
did a bunch of research on this, basically trying to
predict a model, like coming up with a model to
predict conditions that might lead to occurrence of lightning and
not not just here but period and then applying it
(06:51):
here to see like what the deal was. Yeah, because
they used to suggest that it was um uranium deposits
or maybe methane deposits beneath the lake that we're somehow
electrostatically charging the air above it. But I guess they've
never found uranium or methane deposits to support that, and
it's not even clear whether that could happen. So on
helm Unions said, I think I've got this figured out.
(07:14):
He managed to trace and track um the wind that's
generated every night, and it's so reliable it has its
own name. He calls it the Maracabo Basin nocturnal low
level jet. Needs to work on that name a little bit, sure,
it should at least be an acronym yeah, I was
gonna say it's not even the n B N L
(07:35):
l J. So because of the geography and the topography,
that wind comes in every night and it's funneled through
that little narrow mouth that you were talking about. But
as it pushes along inward land word um, it eventually
runs into those mountains that ring the lake itself, right
(07:56):
And when that happens, it goes up and it's pushing
all of that warm air right up into that colder air.
And this wind, this jet picks up about the same
time every day around dusk. So there's your wind right there,
and then you've got the hot water or the hot
warm air that's full of water being pushed up into
the colder air. Yeah, and it's it's kind of interesting.
(08:17):
So you have this air that sort of has a
title motion going as well, So this air is flowing
in and then receding again. And just the fact that
it's it's happening at about the same time every day
because of the way that everything just happened does be
laid out and sit in just the right way to
make this happen at the same time every day. Uh, well,
(08:40):
not every day, but what is it two three hundred
days a year, three hundred days a year, and there
was a period in two thousand ten where it went
six weeks without it and that was a huge deal
because it doesn't usually do that, and they figured out
there's because of El Nino bringing very dry wind in. Yeah,
and to be clear, these are storms. It's not like
(09:00):
you just sit back and watch the light show and
it's just like this warm summer heat lightning or something like.
Oftentimes it's a company by really strong surface winds, and
it's I don't know what it's like to live there.
I think about what about a quarter of the population
of Venezuela lives sort of nearby. Yeah, so it's it's
a lot of people. Yeah, I mean that's just every
(09:21):
single day. I guess they just count on these big,
big storms coming in. Yeah. So they've got the lightning show,
the Catatumbo lightning three hundred nights a year, and it's
stormy about a hundred and sixty nights a year. There's
a ton So what's happening when it's not stormy but
you're getting the lightning? They're probably Oh so I saw
on the Atlas Obscure video that sometimes it's it can
(09:43):
be like hundreds a hundred kilometers in the sky, so
you can get that light show, but it's literally quiet.
So that's pretty cool too. Yeah, those are the money
nights to be there, I guess for sure. Yeah. And
I saw one other thing that I not only saw
this here, I didn't realize it, but I had some
bottom mine haff stuff going on, because there's this website
called Futility Closet that is just an amazing website. So
(10:07):
I saw that. I saw this fact in this article,
and then last night I was on Futility Closet and
I saw the same fact. So it has to that
means it's worth sharing, don't you think. Let's hear it. Venezuela.
Supposedly it was named by Amerigo Vespucci, who named it
Venezuela because when he got to the Lake Maracaibo region,
(10:29):
he saw people living in huts on stilts and it
reminded him of people living in in houses on stilts
in Venice. So Venice apparently means little or Venezuela apparently
means little venice. That's amazing. I thought so too. I
think it's so cool. What else you got? I've got
nothing else? Well, I'm glad we explained it. I love
(10:49):
ones that are like this is amazing and here's exactly
how it works. So thank you very much. On helm
UNO's thanks that was obscure, NASA Science, ABC Explorer, Web
and Futility Closet. I love it. Short Stuff is out everybody,
m H. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
(11:09):
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. H
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